Kept (30 page)

“Let’s find someplace quiet to talk,” said Kimberly, a slight tremor in her voice the only indication tonight’s events were anything out of the ordinary.

She directed Alyssa to a door behind the dais and screen, and when they went through, Alyssa saw it was the entrance to a service hallway. A few waiters and a busboy walked by, barely sparing them a second glance.

The adrenaline was wearing off. Her entire face throbbed from Harold’s blow, but the worst pain was from Derek’s words, ricocheting through her body like shrapnel, tearing everything to shreds. He thought she was a vain, stupid, attention-addicted idiot.

What was wrong with her that she kept opening herself up to people who loved to smack her back down? Derek was right. She didn’t have an iota of common sense.

No.
She stiffened her spine. She was done being screwed over. Done being taken advantage of. Like she said to Derek, it was his loss.

She blinked back her tears and focused on her sister, trying to find the words to apologize to her. “I know I should have handled this differently,” she said, avoiding Kimberly’s gaze. As supportive as Kimberly was, Alyssa knew she’d see censure in her sister’s eyes. “But I couldn’t sit on the truth anymore. I had to let everyone know what had really happened.”

“It’s okay,” Kimberly said. “It’s good the truth is finally out there.” Her voice was calm. Too calm.

Alyssa looked at Kimberly’s face, and she knew.

She turned on her heel and started to run down the hall as fast as her spike heels would allow. Kimberly caught her by the hair and yanked. Alyssa screamed in anger and pain, hoping someone would hear. She wheeled on Kimberly and landed a closed-fist punch on the side of her sister’s head, but Kimberly’s grip didn’t ease.

“Let me go, you crazy bitch!” Alyssa yelled, wondering where the hell the hotel staff had disappeared to. She hit Kimberly again, wincing as her knuckles connected with her sister’s chin.

Kimberly grunted and raised her hand. Alyssa tried but couldn’t block her as Kimberly landed a blow to her head with something hard—much harder than a fist.

Alyssa’s knees gave way, her head ringing as she realized what Kimberly had hit her with.

A gun. Pointing directly at her face.

What the fuck was the matter with him? Derek had done it again. Let his anger get the best of him, let it take over so he said horrible, awful things he couldn’t stop even as he saw the devastation washing over Alyssa’s pale face. But when Van Weldt had hit her, when he’d seen her go down, rage like nothing he’d ever known had blown through him like a firestorm. It took every bit of control he possessed not to kill Van Weldt with his bare hands. As far as Derek was concerned, the guy was lucky to get off with a few bruises.

Then, when he’d seen the rapidly darkening mark on Alyssa’s cheek, he couldn’t hold it back. Anger was clawing him from the inside, demanding to be let out. And he let it out all over the woman he loved.

Sure, he was pissed at her, angry she’d taken such risks. But Derek knew exactly who was at fault. Himself. If he could have, he would have beaten his own ass to a pulp for being such an idiot. He had accused her of being stupid. But
he was the one who had let her talk him into this against every shred of common sense he possessed.

She was right, he was the stupid one. He accused her of putting herself in danger, but he was the asshole who hadn’t stayed close enough to stop Van Weldt from getting physical. He was the one who let down his guard, let her convince him her uncle wouldn’t do anything really bad, not in front of this crowd.

And he supposed a smack in the face wasn’t the end of the world, but any injury to her was too much in his book.

But instead of pulling her to safety, kissing her cheek, and getting her the hell out of there, he’d gone and creamed her.

His cheek stung from where she’d smacked him. He could have caught her hand, but he had taken the slap, knowing he deserved every blow, every angry word that had passed her lips.

…pining after his mommy who left him, pushing away anyone who’s idiot enough to try to get close to you because you’re afraid they’ll leave, too.

She was right. And he needed to grow up and let it go, or he was never going to have a chance with Alyssa.

He scanned the crowd, forming his apology in his head. Should he first tell her he loved her to soften her up? His throat got tight with panic at the thought of admitting it out loud, but he had to do it sometime, and now was as good as any.

I’m done throwing myself at people who treat me like garbage.

Give me another chance,
he thought as he stepped onto the dais for a better view.
I know I don’t deserve it, but give me another chance, and I swear I’ll treat you like a queen.
He cased the crowd, looking for Kimberly’s tall figure and pale blond hair, easier to spot than Alyssa’s much shorter profile.

He didn’t see them.

It’s fine,
his rational analytical brain assured him.
She’s with Kimberly. They probably found a quiet corner to tear me to shreds. And we’ve already determined Kimberly wasn’t involved.

The uneasy sensation he’d been nursing all night intensified, uncurling in his gut like a snake, slithering up his spine.

Had they really determined Kimberly wasn’t involved? They hadn’t found evidence that Kimberly was involved in the deal with Abbassi, but still. He’d taken Alyssa’s word for it, believed in her fierce conviction that her sister would never want to hurt her.

Cold sweat filmed under his T-shirt. Had he done it again? Underestimated the enemy just because she was a woman and didn’t look dangerous?

Derek scanned the crowd again, getting a little frantic when he didn’t see them. He moved off the dais, oblivious to the questioning looks of the guests and staff as he ducked behind the screen where he thought he’d seen the two women go.

There was a door back there that led to a service hall. He looked up and down the hall, didn’t see any sign of the two women. He was about to duck back in the ballroom when he saw a white-coated busboy carrying a tray full of glasses.

“Hey,” he said. “Did you see two women back here? One tall, one short?”

“Si,” the man replied in heavily accented English. “I think they go that way.” He pointed down the hall.

Derek took off at a lope, dread building in his stomach as he pulled out his phone to call Alyssa. But before he could dial, his phone rang. He picked it up when he saw Toni’s number on the display.

“What’s up?” He’d come to the end of the hall the busboy had indicated. The only thing there was a service elevator.

“Is Alyssa with you? I need to talk to her.”

The hairs on the back of Derek’s neck rose at the urgency in Toni’s tone. “She went with Kimberly.”

Dead silence. Then a soft “Shit.”

“What? What did you find?” He instinctively pressed the elevator button to the lobby level.

“You have to find her. I found a copy of the termination agreement Blaylock and Oscar were talking about. It wasn’t for Harold, it was for Kimberly.”

Oh, fuck.

“Exactly. And get this—Blaylock and Kimberly are having an affair. There are e-mails and IM logs. You should see the stuff she says about Alyssa.”

He’d done it again. Overlooked the enemy when she was in plain sight.

Worse, he’d let his emotions get the best of him. In his anger at Alyssa, he’d dropped his guard, turned his back, lost focus long enough for the enemy to get the upper hand.

To take the woman he loved.

He hung up the cell phone and sprinted for the staircase. They’d been gone only a few minutes. He flew down ten flights of stairs and burst into the lobby, oblivious to the startled stares as he sprinted for the door. He ignored shouts from the valets as he ran down the ramp to the hotel parking garage. He was almost to the bottom when he heard the roar of an engine.

Big, German, and coming up fast. The lights hit him straight on, momentarily blinding him as they headed for him. Derek ducked and rolled, narrowly avoiding becoming a blood streak on the wall as the driver attempted to pin him.

Derek came to a stop just in time to register the license-plate number and Alyssa’s terrified face in the rear window as the car sped off.

Derek.
She wanted to hurl herself from the car, scream his name until he came after her. But hurling was out of the question because her hands were bound in front of her. And
there was the matter of Kimberly’s gun trained at her head. Screaming would only get her another knock on the head, and at this rate she was going to sustain serious brain damage before the night was through—if she didn’t die first. If she wanted to get out of this, she needed to keep her wits about her.

She scooted as far as she could go across the leather backseat of the BMW and prayed that somehow, some way, Derek would find a way to get to her, especially because her purse, her cell phone, and, with it, Derek’s tracking device were currently lying somewhere on the floor of the parking garage.

“Why?” Alyssa asked, unfreezing her tongue enough to ask the million-dollar question.

Kimberly made a scoffing noise and gave Alyssa a disbelieving look. “Are you kidding me? You’ve never been anything but Daddy’s bastard and a family embarrassment.”

“So you decided you needed to kill me?” Alyssa’s tone was aggressive, impatient, but, hey, it looked like she wasn’t going to make it through the night, and she’d be damned if she died without finding out why.

“I worked my ass off for the company,” said Kimberly. “I did everything for the family. I brokered a deal to save the business. But who got the credit for saving the company? You! You and your skanky ad campaign with Van Weldt diamonds all over your twat.”

“So that’s why you killed Daddy? Because he gave me credit?”

The driver headed for the on ramp to the Bay Bridge, heading east toward Oakland.

“No, you idiot. I killed him because he was going to fire me. I got us enough capital to avoid bankruptcy, but when Daddy found out that Louis and the diamonds might not all be legitimate, instead of thanking me for saving the company, he decided to fire me.”

“What did you expect him to do? You made a deal with a guy who turned out to be a diamond smuggler and an arms dealer.” Kimberly’s face pulled into a mask of rage, and Alyssa wondered if mouthing off was going to earn her another blow to the head. Or worse.

Kimberly visibly pulled herself together. “There was no proof we knew that when we made the deal. We could have easily spun it so we came out looking like the victim. But Daddy said I’d broken his trust. Like he’s one to talk.”

“What about your mother?”

“She was a mess. She was becoming more of a public embarrassment than you are.” Kimberly was insane, a stone-cold sociopath without an ounce of regret or remorse. Kimberly’s mouth pursed. “You’re supposed to be dead, too,” she said, her matter-of-fact tone more chilling than her earlier rage. “But not everyone was completely on board. Louis had something else in mind for you.”

They came off the bridge, and the driver turned south on the highway.

“What do you mean?” But she already knew the answer to that question. A memory burbled to the surface.
We can still work this out, Alyssa,
he’d said, even as his hand squeezed her breast in a bruising grip as she lay there, helplessly strapped to the bed.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, and at this point I don’t care. All I know is, as much as I want you dead, Louis wants you alive. For now.”

F
OCUS.
ADRENALINE PUMPED through Derek’s veins, bordering on panic as he wove through evening traffic. He took that energy and channeled it into razor-sharp focus, becoming the machine with no other goal than to take down his enemy and complete his mission. He accelerated and swerved, narrowly missing the bumper of the Prius in the lane next to him as he maneuvered his Audi to the on ramp of the Bay Bridge. He couldn’t afford to think of Alyssa now, her terrified face in the car window.

The fact that he’d finally realized he loved her, and now it might be too late….

He shoved all that out of his head, pushing it aside, put himself on autopilot.

It was the only way he could save her.

He checked his navigation system, which showed that according to Toni, the black Beemer hadn’t made it across the bridge yet.

After Derek had picked himself off the floor of the parking garage and sprinted to his own car, he’d placed a quick call to Toni. Within minutes she’d hacked into the system of red lights and traffic cameras that monitored San Francisco and the Bay Area highways. With the license-plate number and general direction Derek provided, Toni by some miracle
managed to pick up the car and sent its updated location to Derek’s nav system.

“I should be able to get a visual soon,” he told Toni, who had stayed on the line with him to give him verbal updates before sending the BMW’s location. At this time of night, traffic was steady, but he wouldn’t have any trouble picking the big sedan out of the throng. Then it was just a matter of keeping his distance and not letting himself get made.

And there they were. Several cars ahead. The BMW moved fast, steady, but not fast enough to attract attention.

He put Toni on hold so he could call the cops. They could pull the BMW over and end this right here and now.

The dispatcher picked up. “Nine-one-one operator. Please hold.”

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Alyssa shivered as Kimberly and the driver escorted her into what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. The only sign of life was another dark sedan similar to the one she’d arrived in, parked in the wide driveway, and a faint light showing through the broken windows along the roofline of the warehouse.

Gravel crunched under her high heels, and she stumbled. With her hands tied she couldn’t brace herself and took the impact on her bare knees. She cried out when a sharp piece of gravel stabbed into skin and bone.

“Shut up,” Kimberly said as she jerked her back to her feet.

Across the street, a dark figure rounded the corner and shuffled past, a pile of old rags pushing a shopping cart.

Alyssa yelled at the top of her lungs. “Help me, please! I’m being kidnapped! Get the police!” Her cry was cut off by the butt of Kimberly’s gun clipping her on the side of the head again.

Not that Kimberly needed to worry, Alyssa realized blearily.
The vagrant didn’t so much as glance their way as he rattled his way down the block.

Kimberly and the driver opened the door and shoved her inside the dimly lit warehouse full of empty crates. Broken bottles and trash littered the floor, and it smelled like it might have been recently used as a bathroom.

And standing in the center, his dusky skin jaundiced by the yellow light, his lips pulled into a smile that was all the more frightening in its pure delight, was Louis Abbassi. He was flanked by two men carrying wicked-looking machine guns while another man joined the driver to stand by the door.

“Ah, you are here,” he said, and Alyssa swallowed back bile at the glee in his tone. “It has been too long since I have seen you, beautiful Alyssa.”

The way he drew out the
S
’s in her name reminded her of a slithering snake. “What do you want from me?”

He reached out to touch her cheek, and she couldn’t keep herself from flinching. His smile fell at her response. Quick as a striking snake, he backhanded her across the cheek. Her ears rang, and her eyes filled with tears.
Now I’ll have a bruise to match the other cheek,
she thought morbidly.

“You can taste pain or pleasure,
chérie
, but the more you shrink from me, the more determined I will be to break you.” He ran his fingers down her throat, pressed meaningfully against her windpipe. Alyssa swallowed hard, her knees shaking as she thought of Andy, choked to death and left in Alyssa’s closet. She forced herself to hold perfectly still as Louis ran his hand over her collarbone, down her chest, to cover one small breast.

She caught Kimberly’s smirk out of the corner of her eye.

“I did what you asked,” Kimberly said. “Now give me the passport and the account number, and I’ll get out of here.”

Louis nodded and gave Alyssa’s nipple a rough squeeze. She struggled not to vomit.

Please, God, please let Derek be coming for me.

I will always come for you.

She clung to his words like a lifeline as Louis turned to Kimberly, who was standing, arms folded, toe tapping impatiently like she was waiting for a late train. Not like she had just cold-bloodedly handed over her half sister to a psychopathic killer.

“Yes,” Louis said, turning from Kimberly to retrieve a briefcase resting on the floor. “You did as I asked, and now you will get what you deserve.”

Unease replaced the smug impatience on Kimberly’s face as Louis said something in a flat, clipped language she didn’t recognize and nodded at the thug standing to his left.

The horrified realization on Kimberly’s face matched Alyssa’s own as, without a word, the man lifted his gun. There was nothing but a faint
pop,
and Kimberly’s chest exploded. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as she staggered back several feet and then fell in a sprawl. Her eyes stared silently at the ceiling, and a trickle of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth.

Derek had parked his car several blocks away and crept to the warehouse where Kimberly had taken Alyssa. Now he stood just outside the door, his Sig raised, silent and still as he blended into the shadows.

He listened intently, his stomach boiling with sour bile as he listened to Louis. The sick fuck was obsessed with her. Derek had a feeling the whole deal with Van Weldt had been an elaborate way for Louis to get close to Alyssa.

Suddenly a woman was screaming loud, long wails. Every primal, male instinct in him bellowed at him to charge in there, gun blazing to protect what was his.

Alyssa. His woman.

Then he heard her sobbing. “You shot her. Oh, my God, you killed Kimberly.”

Which meant Alyssa was still alive, and he needed to get a fucking grip.

He dug deep, summoning years of practice in shoving his emotions aside, all his military training. Following his emotions would get him killed, and Alyssa would still be in the hands of this sick fuck.

He drowned out the sobs that cut him like razors, forced himself to stay focused, to analyze the situation and come up with a strategy that would get them both out alive and unhurt.

He used the darkness to his advantage as he craned his head for a quick glance inside. The two thugs standing near the door didn’t so much as feel the air stir. There were two more men inside with Louis, and then Louis himself.

Five men, all armed, against himself, armed with his Sig. 45 and a wickedly sharp combat knife.

He cursed silently as he remembered his extra clip locked in his gun case in the trunk of his car.

Seven bullets.

Five men.

Good enough odds for him.

Someone was screaming loud and high like a siren wail.
Maybe it’s the police. Maybe they’re coming to save me.
Something hit her across the face, a big, open hand smacking her over and over. The siren wail stopped, and Alyssa realized it had been her screaming.

Suddenly everything became disjointed, disconnected, like her life had become a movie she was watching rather than living. She saw herself, hands to horrified mouth as she watched one of Louis’s thugs drag Kimberly’s body away.

She saw Louis draping his suit jacket over her shoulders and pulling her close in a sick attempt to offer comfort.

“You killed her,” Alyssa finally choked out, coming back
to herself. “Why would you kill her? She was working with you, helping you.”

“Chérie,
you would be dead if she had her way. I could not let her live after she tried to harm you so. Don’t you understand, I will do anything for you, even kill those who try to do you harm.”

“You killed Andy, didn’t you?” She already knew it was true but wanted to hear him admit it.

Louis’s hand tightened painfully on her shoulder. “Vicious cow. She thought because that idiot Richard made her do it, she could get away with it.” He pulled away slightly and tilted Alyssa’s chin up to meet his gaze. “But I will not let anyone hurt you, you see?” His smile would have been tender if not for the half-crazed light in his eyes.

Christ, he really expected her to be grateful to him.

“You killed Richard, too?”

“Of course. After what he did to you, how could I not?” He shook his head. “And he tried to convince me it was all his idea, but I knew your cunt of a sister led him around by the balls.” He nodded in the direction of the black smear of blood Kimberly’s body had left on the concrete floor.

Nausea choked Alyssa. Louis had killed Kimberly, and Richard and Andy, too, all out of some twisted loyalty to her.

“But now you are safe, and we can finally be together.”

Safe?
Alyssa bit back a hysterical bubble of laughter.

“We would have been together much sooner if your would-be savior hadn’t interfered,” Louis continued, his mouth pulled tight in disgust.

Derek.

“Yes, Taggart.”

Alyssa hadn’t realized she’d spoken his name aloud.

Louis’s eyes narrowed on her. “He has had you, hasn’t he?”

She shook her head, eyes widening in panic as his fingers closed over her throat.

“Do not lie to me. I suspected it all along, and now I see the truth in your eyes. But now you are with me. You will forget about him, erase his touch from your memory, until all you know is me. I will drape you in diamonds, give you everything your heart desires. You will be happy with me,
chérie,
you will see.” He smiled as his fingers loosened and slid across her throat in a mockery of a caress.

She struggled not to throw up. “You can’t expect me to go willingly after what you’ve done—”

All hint of affection left his face. “Your mother is very ill,
oui
?”

Alyssa nodded and felt tears slip down her cheeks.

“You want her to live, do you not?”

Alyssa nodded again.

“Then you will do as I ask, in all things.”

Alyssa closed her eyes, half wishing he would kill her. Death was preferable to what he had planned.

Derek slipped across the front of the warehouse. A cracked cinderblock lay in the driveway. Derek heaved it one-armed at the windshield of one of the black sedans.

The night exploded with the sound of shattering glass and the blare of the car alarm. Lights flashed, the horn honked, a siren wailed.

Derek crouched next to the car as two men rushed from the building, brandishing their guns.

He fired two quick shots at one, splintering his forearm and sending his gun flying. The other thug wheeled around and peppered the ground where Derek had been standing with machine-gun fire. Derek rolled around the other side of the car, popped up over the hood, and took out the thug with one shot to his gun arm and another to his kneecap.

The man fell, cursing and groaning. Derek ran past him, scooping up the machine gun the first one had dropped without breaking stride. He grabbed the other’s Glock and tucked it into his waistband.

He could hear Louis bellowing inside the warehouse as Derek slipped inside the door. He let fly with a round of machine-gun fire pointed away from Louis, Alyssa, and Louis’s two guards. Derek used the distraction to slip deeper into the shadows, ducking behind an abandoned crate.

Louis screamed in Afrikaans as his two men warily peered into the darkness, trying to get a bead on Derek’s position. One of his men fired as Louis made a break for the door, half dragging, half carrying Alyssa in his wake.

Derek raised his gun, aiming for Louis’s head.

A bullet sang past his ear, and he jerked back.

His shot went wide, slamming into the wall next to the doorway, but at least it halted Louis in his tracks. Alyssa took advantage of Louis’s distraction and jerked from his hold, balled her bound hands into a fist, and brought them up hard against the bottom of his nose. She followed that with a stomp of her lethal heel into the top of Louis’s foot. Louis staggered back, clutching his bleeding nose, and slipped his hold on her. But instead of running for the door as Derek hoped, Alyssa ran deeper into the warehouse, disappearing into the dark labyrinth of abandoned crates.

Louis took off after her. Machine-gun fire peppered the crate Derek was behind. He ducked down, felt wooden splinters embed themselves in his cheek. He popped back up, saw the barrel of the guard’s Kalashnikov glint in the dim yellow light. He took aim, squeezed off two quick shots, and was gratified by the sound of a meaty thunk of a bullet hitting flesh, followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor.

He rolled and belly-crawled silently across the floor as bullets hit the crate he’d been behind just seconds before. He
stopped and rolled up to his knee, squeezing off one shot to draw fire.

The other guard took the bait. Two more shots, and the guard was facedown on the floor with a bullet between his eyes.

Louis was nowhere to be seen, lost in the dark cavern of the warehouse.

So was Alyssa.

Derek held himself perfectly still, so quiet he couldn’t even hear his own breath.

Nothing.

Then he heard it. A scuffle, a muffled, “No,” and he saw Louis drag Alyssa into the pool of light. He had a Glock 9mm in his hand, and it was pointed directly at Alyssa’s head.